We covered about 300 miles today, and began our journey pretty early in the morning. I have yet to teach my children the fine art of sleeping in. They usually get up at 6:45 or 7:00am. I am NOT wired that way!
We packed a lunch and some necessary supplies and headed out the door. We made the hour-long trip from the cabin to the Mackinac Bridge just in time for a picnic lunch at the public park with the PERFECT view.
Nicknamed "Mighty Mac" it was completed on November 1, 1957. The first car to cross is now parked permanantly at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. The Mighty Mac is currently the third longest suspension bridge in the world, and held the title of the longest bridge in the world until recently (beat out by a bridge in Japan and one in China). It is 5 miles in length, and on Labor Day the bridge closes to automobile traffic for part of the day and opens up for pedestrians. This is the only day of the year that individuals are permitted to walk or run across the bridge.
The Mighty Mac connects St. Ignace (upper peninsula) to Mackinaw City (lower peninsula). The towers rise 552 feet above the surface of the water, and the road is 200 feet above water to allow large ships to pass beneath. There is a total of 42,000 miles of steel wire used in the construction of this bridge (wow!) and 6 million rivets and bolts holding it all together. Its a beautiful bridge!
But with beauty comes tragedy. There were six men killed during the construction of this bridge, and at this park sits a memorial to these brave men. Theirs is a job few could do....
We truely picked the perfect day to visit and learn about the bridge. The sun was out, it was 88 degrees, and the water was warm. We took some time to go wading to our knees after a good lunch.
It was a VERY windy day!
This is seriously one of four photos I am in this vacation.... I'm always behind the camera! I don't mind......
After lunch we packed up, buckled back into the van, and headed north across the bridge!
Notice how Matt (driving) picked the middle lane to drive in, which is not paved - it's a see-through metal grate. Not helping my fear of bridges! In 1987 a woman driving a Yugo (small car) actually blew right off of the bridge and plunged to her death in a strong gust of wind.
And in just five minutes, we had arrived in Michigan's upper peninsula! Welcome to da U.P. eh!
By now the kids were pretty worn out, so they slept through the hour-long drive from the bridge to Sault St. Marie. The U.P. is pretty sparsely populated; quite a change from our busy lives in Grand Rapids! I found it most beautiful and serene.
Hundreds of acres of hayfields, newly harvested
Thousands of acres of woods. We didn't see any black bears or moose. Darn!
And eventually we saw this sign:
which meant we had reached the end of I-75 before it exits the country.
Sault St. Marie is home to Lake Superior State University.
If you can see past the iron gate, there's a HUGE bridge that goes from I-75 into Canada. Called simply the "Sault St. Marie international bridge" it connects Sault St. Marie, Michigan with Sault St. Marie, Ontario (Canada). Opened shortly after the Mighty Mac in 1962, its just under 3 miles long and crosses directly over the channel that leads up to the locks.
Our first stop was, of course, the Soo Locks
There is a 3-tiered observation deck that allows visitors to rise above the black iron gates to watch the locks in action. We were extremely luck in that we were just in time to see one of the five freighters of the day coming into the locks. Where some people have to wait around for a few hours, we waited a total of 15 minutes.
This huge freighter had a side clearance of 2 to 3 feet, which was pretty average for many of the ships coming through. Talk about precision! A majority of the ships coming through, who pass from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and back, are carrying iron ore, coal, grain or stone/gravel.
Men on the pier grab heavy duty ropes that the sailors drop down as they creep through the lock, and use these to slow and stop the huge ship as they prepare to enclose it between the two doors.
For those who are not familiar with the locks, I'll give a brief history. The St. Mary's River, which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, is very turbulent. Many ships in history have sunk here because the water flows so fast. The reason behind it is that the water level at one end is about 25 feet higher than at the other end. To solve this, the locks were created. First built in the late 1700's and rennovated multiple times through the decades, the current locks were designed and built by the Army Corps of Engineers. Once built in wood and operated manually, they are now controlled with computers and steel.
There are four separate locks (MacArthur, Poe, Sabin and Davis) all parallel to one another, and each operates in the same manner. After the ship enters the lock from the 'open' side, which can be either the high side (Lake Superior) or the low side (Lake Huron), the ship is secured with ropes, and the open lock channel door is closed behind the ship.
Once the ship is enclosed, pressure gated channels are opened up below the ship (referred to as either the filing valve or the emptying valve), which allow the water to assume the level of water that matches the desired direction of the ship. For example, the Spruce Glen here - from Montreal - entered from the high side. When it was safely locked in, the channel to the lower side was opened, and the water essentially drained out until the water pressure was equal with the Lake Huron side while the gate behind it held back the high pressure and high water level from the Lake Superior side. It works in reverse in the same manner.
In just under ten minutes, the ship had been lowered 21 feet, allowing it to exit on the Lake Huron side after it was unsecured from the dock. The workers standing on the dock here in the picture are standing on the same platform as they were a few pictures back, when they were looking straight up at the ship's sailors. Pretty amazing, isn't it?
The locks permit safe passage for approximately 11,000 vessels a year and does not charge a fee per vessel. A 1,000 foot freighter, like this one, has the carrying capacity of six 100-car trains or 2,308 semi trucks. There is a huge shipping industry in our Great Lakes!
Elliott loved the big ships!
Time to cool off and have some ice cream!
There was irony in this: the sign on the door said "Proudly serving Hudsonville Ice Cream!" which is made just a few minutes from our home in Grand Rapids. We came all the way to Sault St. Marie to have Hudsonville ice cream. But there isn't a bad flavor - we love it!
Crossing the Mighty Mac on the way back, Madeline was so inspired that she made a video with her Leap Pad and narrated it with all of the fun facts we learned today. So happy she's listening!
We stopped this time at a park directly at the base of the bridge, to have a snack and stretch our legs.
Distant photo of Mackinaw Island, a popular vacation destination accessable only by ferry.
Lupine & marigolds
Nothing better than family!
Goodnight from northern Michigan!
* For those of you interested in double-checking my homework, or reading further, you can access the official Macinac Bridge website
here or the Soo Locks website
here
